Prayer by Talmage

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 29, 1885

Prayer.

By Talmage

IN childhood we begin with, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and we learn the Lord's Prayer, and then, in after life, we get a few formulas of prayer, and go on with the same thing year by year, as though we did not have every day new sins to confess and new blessings for which to thank God.

What is prayer? A doctor in the army said he was going over a battle-field after a great conflict. He had but a small supply of medicine, and there were enough men wounded to occupy twenty or thirty surgeons. He could only attend to a small part of the wounded. It was doleful, he said, to hear the cries of the wounded men. One cried out: "This artery is bleeding me to death, doctor; won't you bind it up?" And some one else cried: "Doctor, can't you give me an anodyne to soothe this pain?" Hundreds of voices crying out all over the battle-field. Ah, that was prayer!

We are wounded from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot—hurt with wounds that will be our death unless we have the divine Surgeon come to our relief. Are we holding up these gashes of soul before Christ, our divine Physician? Are we anxious for him to come and heal us? That is prayer, and anything short of it is no prayer at all.—Talmage.